Six shot, two dead, as violence sweeps several neighborhoods

Peter Hermann and Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun

Six people were shot, two fatally, in a spate of violence in several neighborhoods in Baltimore on Wednesday. Most of the gunfire erupted in a four-hour span starting Wednesday evening and into the night.

In the latest shooting, about 9:45 p.m. Wednesday, two men were shot in the 5700 block of Nasco Place, a small street near Loch Raven Boulevard, north of Good Samaritan Hospital in Northeast Baltimore, police said.

Police said a 31-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the right side of his face walked into a hospital emergency room for treatment. About the same time, police said, they received a call for a shooting on Nasco Place and found another 31-year-old man in the passenger seat of a car with a gunshot wound to the head. The victim, identified as Corey Alexander, was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 1:33 a.m.

Police said they know of no motive and have no suspects.

David C. Miller of the Urban Leadership Institute knows Alexander and his family, and described him as a "phenomenal young man." He said he was a 1998 graduate of City College and had recently graduated from college. He had no criminal record.

"We live in a city where we tell these young men to stay out of trouble, to further your education, not to have babies young, and they still get cut down in the prime of their life," Miller said. "It's a tremendous loss.

"When I got the call this morning, I was literally numb," Miller said Thursday.

A second homicide on Wednesday also occurred in Northeast Baltimore, farther south near Herring Run Park. Police said witnesses came to police headquarters at 8:30 p.m. to report a shooting inside a house in the 4300 block of Greenhill Ave. in the Parkside neighborhood.

Investigators said they found a 26-year-old man dead in the basement who had been shot in the head. No other details were available. Police did not release the name of the victim, pending notification of relatives.

The first in a string of nonfatal shootings on Wednesday occurred at 5:45 p.m. in the 500 block of N. Montford Ave. in the McElderry Park neighborhood of East Baltimore. Police said a 26-year-old man was shot seven times as he sat on the steps of a rowhouse.

At the scene, two tennis shoes lay at the base of the steps as police searched for shell casings. Workers from the Safe Streets anti-violence program stood on a nearby corner, talking about the incident and reaching out to contacts.

At 7:30 p.m., police said, a 40-year-old man was found by police sitting on the curb in the 400 block of E. Patapsco Ave. with a single gunshot wound to the right shoulder. Police said the man had been shot inside a car a few blocks away in the 3900 block of Inner Circle in Curtis Bay.

Police said a passenger in the car was taken in for questioning, but no charges had been filed as of Thursday morning.

About 9 p.m. police said, a 21-year-old man was found inside a relative's house on Spring Hill Avenue in Northwest Baltimore, where he had driven after being shot in the right side of his back. Police said the shooting occurred in West Baltimore, in the 2800 block of Presbury St. in Rosemont.